The Afghanistan schoolgirl who became a symbol of Kabul's suicide bombing

Wailing and surrounded by the dead, the image of Tarana Akbari distraught in a
bloodstained dress symbolised the horror of Kabul's suicide bombing when it
appeared on front pages across the world last week.

In her first interview, Tarana said she thought she had seen the suicide bomber work his way through the crowd towards the shrine gates and try to get inside before he detonated.

"There was a young man who asked an elder at the shrine to open the gates," she said. "Soon after I saw him explode. Then I just saw lots of dead people."

Images of her amid the carnage, dressed in vivid green to mark the martyrdom of the Prophet's grandson, appeared in the Daily Telegraph and made the front pages of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

She suffered shrapnel wounds to her shins, arm and stomach in the blast and was only told on Saturday that her brother had died.

Her father, Ahmad Shah Akbari, now keeps one photograph of the devastation in his jacket pocket and said many of those pictured lying slumped and bloodied at his daughter's feet were their relatives.

"I have lost a son and I still have two other children in hospital. I was across town when it happened. They called me on my mobile and told me there had been an explosion. When I arrived, all I could see was injured and dead."

"Tarana is still in a lot of pain and my other children are lying in bed with tubes in them," he said.

Hamid Karzai, the Afghanistan president, said the suicide attack at the Abul Fazl shrine on the holy day of Ashura was unprecedented and it raised fears of a new sectarian dimension to the violence in Afghanistan.

The attack has been claimed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Alami, an obscure Pakistan-based militant group with a history of targeting Shia Muslims.

The Afghan president heightened tensions with neighbouring Pakistan by threatening to pursue the attack with Islamabad.

Mr Akbari, a 37-year-old market porter, said: "Everyone says it was Pakistan – some party or organisation there.

"We don't know why they did this. They were poor people, what was their crime?"

The death toll from the December 6 blasts was still rising, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public health said. Victims had been taken to hospitals across the city and some had died at home without reaching medical treatment. At least five children and 10 women were among the dead and more than 100 people were wounded. Mr Karzai said on Sunday that the death toll from both attacks was now at least 80.

Since the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan has been largely spared the Sunni-Shia targeted sectarian killing which has blighted Pakistan and Iraq.

Shia leaders have appealed for calm since last week's blast amid fears the attack was a deliberate provocation to open a rift between the groups and further destabilise the country.

Ryan Crocker, American ambassador, said at the weekend: "I do not see this turning into a sectarian conflict just looking at the reactions on the part of the Shia leadership, calling for calm."

"I am struck by the reaction – the Afghan reaction – which is what makes me think that whoever the architects were – they don't have much Afghan support," he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Karzai blamed foreign donors who have poured billions of pounds into his country for some of the rampant corruption which is hobbling international attempts at reconstruction.

He told an anti-corruption conference that "our foreigner colleagues have not only been uncooperative but sometimes they have created obstacles".

"One urgent way to avoid corruption in Afghanistan is for our foreign friends and co-workers to stop giving contracts to government officials and their family members," he continued.

The chronic graft found at all levels of the Afghan state has been blamed for siphoning off billions and also driving Afghans away from the government and toward the Taliban-led insurgency.

Mr Karzai has consistently refused to prosecute power brokers and members of his inner circle accused of corruption.